CAPSICUM A Conceptual Model for Service Oriented Architecture

As technology evolves, so too must the models and frameworks for representing information systems. For IT practitioners to fully embrace and deploy a service oriented architectural model, existing frameworks for planning, designing and implementing systems need to be updated to support the SOA concepts of loosely coupled services and real-time process orchestration. The siloed architectural reality that has prevailed over the last two decades is outdated, obsolete and a hindrance to delivering the agility and flexibility demanded by modern enterprises. Organisations have demonstrated a desire to demolish application silos and to begin to take an enterprise view to the organisation of IT resources. It is therefore appropriate that to support the evolving SOA architectural paradigm, the conceptual frameworks used to guide strategy and manage the deployment of SOA designs need to be reviewed.Existing research has primarily focused on the technologies that support SOA deployments and the technical delivery of service based platforms. Very little research is available on the contribution of SOA in aligning IT resources in support of business needs. This paper reviews the business challenges created by siloed, application-centric Enterprise Architectures, examines the potential that SOA principles offer in addressing these issues and proposes a conceptual model for SOA driven business transformation through an enterprise alignment of computing resources.